Under his presidential powers he gets to decide what's classified or "secret" and whether it should stay that way.

Anyone else could be charged under the Espionage Act, but the President is above that particular law.

What he said exactly remains vague, because the information is not suddenly declassified just because he chose to share it with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

The Washington Post was apparently asked by officials to leave out the details, beyond the fact that the conversation was about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to laptop computers and commercial aviation.

In part the resulting controversy is about the fact that the information was provided by a US intelligence partner.

Permission to share had not been given, and even US allies had not been looped in.

This, it's said, may result in allies limiting the information they give to the US from now on, although there's some evidence that some have already been more cautious since Mr Trump was elected.

National security adviser, General HR McMaster, who was in the meeting, has attempted to play down the ramifications saying he's "not concerned at all" that allies may curb information sharing, and that the "conversation was wholly appropriate".

He says much of what was discussed was based on publicly available information.

Asked about the matter, the President said the meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister was "very, very successful" and the point is to "get as many to help fight terrorism as possible" referring to the collaborative effort against ISIS.

However, it's a leak that's designed to support the loose cannon theory about Mr Trump; that he can't be trusted, that he's volatile and undisciplined, that he doesn't think before he speaks (or tweets), that he doesn't consider consequences.

It creates another week of a sense of chaos in the White House and feeds the doomsayer narrative about the presidency.

Once again press staff and senior administration officials are left to try to explain and justify the President's actions.

And who is the leaker? A question once again lost amid the churn.

The narrative is confused. Initial denials that the incident even happened were then contradicted by the President himself in a tweet. This is a common pattern.

Mr Trump has shown extreme frustration about the suspicion that his campaign collaborated with the Russians to win the election.

There are three separate enquiries investigating and this latest development merely adds to the intrigue.

Here are the facts:

A number of his former campaign staff have proven links to Russia;

His first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was sacked over conversations with the Russian ambassador;

Sally Yates, former acting attorney-general, was fired after she warned the White House that Mr Flynn had been "compromised" and was susceptible to blackmail by Russia;

Attorney-General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from Russia investigations after it was revealed he also had a series of conversations with the Russian ambassador while advising the Trump campaign;

The President has just sacked the head of the FBI in part due to frustrations about what he calls the "made-up story" about Russian interference;

He then chose to meet the Russian Foreign Minister and ambassador (as well as Henry Kissinger) in the Oval Office the very next day;

Now it's been revealed that he chose to share sensitive information during that meeting.

It feeds the very narrative that the President is trying to shake.

It's now been revealed that the likely source of the intelligence given to the Russians was Israel, one of the places Mr Trump will visit on his first overseas trip beginning later this week.